Recovering from The Jinx's Mind-Blowing Finale

[SPOILER ALERT: If you wish to experience the same paralytic state of shock I’m in as I write, you can stop read after the second "wow" and go binge-watch The Jinx.]

The first rule when you work on a film set: act like you’ve got a live mic on you at all times. The stars know to watch what they say; the crew pretends not to hear the slips; and everyone waits for that after work beer to tell you what they really think. Clearly, Robert Durst has never worked on a film set.*

So, while _Serial _made a virtue out of the metaphysical handwringing, there was none of that coy quantum uncertainty for _The Jinx’s truly stunning finale. _We’ve gotten so used to the _Rashomon-_effect in our postmodern lives that you can easily forget that somewhere, beneath all the obfuscations, self-deceptions and blurred lines of shared perception, there is that thing you can hang your hat on that previous generations used to call, "reality." With five words muttered to himself while taking a piss, Robert Durst collapsed the schizophrenic wave function of his culpability into one concrete eminently discernable point: guilty. Because as anyone who’s decided to keep drinking after 2 a.m. knows, the bathroom is the ultimate confessional, the one moment in life we’re alone with nothing but white tile, ourselves, and the truth. And burps like that are never innocent.

So, Tywin Lannister’s death atop the royal John on _Game of Thrones _is no longer the Most Mindblowing TV Moment in a Bathroom. (You rarely get to say this and have it not be a cliché: Truth is unquestionably stranger than fiction.) Let’s bracket the moral handwringing about the ethics of true crime a moment**. I’m searching for a reasonable doubt to support the idea that Robert Durst is not a serial killer; but right now, I’d deny climate change before I’d believe Durst’s innocence. So what’s the most chilling aspect of watching _The _Jinx? Could it be the knowledge that Jarecki captured on camera a live, squirming specimen of Homo sociopathicus. (Though as you re-watch Durst’s final monologue with himself, you can’t help but wonder about multiple or dissociative personality disorder as well. Thank God, I’m not a psychologist.) In retrospect, all the signs were there: psychopaths can not only be cold, calculating and eerily charismatic; they’re also reckless and compulsive with little to no impulse control. Durst got himself arrested while on the lam because he shoplifted a sandwich—while he had $500 cash in his pocket. His brother Douglas also believes Durst killed seven Malamutes he’d named Igor as murder-practice; when he was in jail in Pennsylvania, Durst was recorded saying, "I’ll Igor [Douglas]." While I’m sure Durst is not the first person to urinate on a CVS with impunity, when you use the name of dead dog(s) as a verb meaning "revenge," you’re probably a psychopath. Most telling of all, Durst had already been caught by the live mic once before in the series. He should have known better; but clearly on some level, the hubristic need to have his story told his way had long overcome Durst’s better judgment.

Even in the final interview, with Jarecki holding those two damning envelopes right in front of him, Durst doesn’t let up with the repartee, completing Jarceki’s question, "I’m searching for a way how..." "—two people can misspell Beverley?" And he’s cordial to the last, shaking Jarecki’s hand after being unmasked with a "Thank you very much." Reading the real life testimonies of those who’ve fallen prey to psychopaths, it’s easy to maintain a judgmental distance and wonder how anyone could be so easily conned by heartless monsters who ruin their lives over and over. And yet, suspecting full well that Robert Durst was a Grade A-certified psycho, I clearly bought in to the charm, those beady eyes were just too watchable. So did Jarecki to a degree; and so too, tragically, did Susan Berman’s son-in-law Sareb. In retrospect, the signs were so clearly all there; Durst just managed to sweep it under the rug with his genial nonchalance.

But, in my opinion, the most chilling thing about _The Jinx _has to be the dim light it, in conjunction with Serial, casts upon the American criminal justice system. Juxtapose Robert Durst with the hypothetical innocence of Adnan Syed from Serial and the biggest difference is so glaring it will almost blind you: money. Syed has relied on the donations from Baltimore’s Muslim community to mount his defense; Durst had the limitless power and resources of a New York real estate heir. In fact, Durst needed only about $65 million, the amount for which his brother Arthur bought him out of the Durst family trust. But it was enough to obtain Durst the protections of the genteel class to which he’d been born and the benefit of the doubt that so rarely goes to others. As the saying goes, poor people are crazy; the rich are eccentric. And it was enough to get away with, likely, three murders. In the end, it took a filmmaker’s compulsive obsession, Durst’s own hubris, and years of research to unearth finally the smoking gun. It’s not news, but the law in America is a machine fueled by money and the ambitions of those who are its cogs. Unfortunately, not every miscarriage of justice can rely on individuals as dogged as Andrew Jarecki and Sarah Koenig to right them.

*P.S. A hearty round of applause to the underpaid audio intern who had to sift through the countless hours of raw audio footage to unearth that moment. You sir, or madam, made television history.

**I will say, whether or not we’re right to be "entertained" by Jarecki’s project, I’m fairly confident Kathy Durst’s family is happy for the start of closure.

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